Morgan Foret

What is the biggest challenge facing women in our industry today and how do you overcome it?

The responses from other Women Leaders in Pharma members resonated with me. Overall, I feel optimistic for women in STEM and our industry. Although there are always improvements to be made, we have come far, and I am grateful that I could engage in science and research throughout my personal life (sharing a passion for astronomy with my father) and professional life (earning my PhD in Pharmacology and building a career in pharma).

I will share two more personal challenges that I believe other women may relate to and which I continue to work on. (1) Hesitancy to speak up. When I started my academic journey, I felt hesitant to speak out and often waited for an invitation to share my thoughts, as I feared my contribution may not be as valuable as I hoped. However, over time, gaining confidence to speak out and share my insights helped me realize the importance of this approach and that I did have valuable ideas! (2) Saying yes to everything. Although I believe in the importance of involving oneself in a breadth of activities since it enables personal and professional growth while contributing meaningfully to the broader community, it is OK to say no and prioritize your time. In the past, I was overly giving of my time– and I realized that I needed to reflect on how to prioritize where I placed my time and energy and not stretch myself thin.

To what do you attribute your biggest career successes?

First, I need to briefly define what career success means to me. More broadly, I view career success as constantly learning and challenging myself by growing in my role or by stepping into a new role. Ultimately, I aspire to gain career experience at each stage of the drug development pipeline (drug discovery, pre-clinical, clinical, approval and post-market) to understand and appreciate each step in the process while being a part of getting life- changing medicines to patients in need. More specifically, I define career success by achieving project goals, overcoming challenges, meeting tough deadlines, achieving regulatory approvals, and receiving positive feedback from internal and external team members.

My biggest career successes stemmed from fostering supportive environments and connections with others. I believe in bringing out the best in others and surrounding myself with those who bring out the best in me. As a result of this approach, I find that we succeed together. For example, I was able to secure my first role in industry thanks to the help of a colleague I met during my PhD. I then paid this forward by supporting the successful job application of another colleague I worked with during my PhD. As peers, we are all learning and growing together while navigating the industry landscape.  I truly believe in supporting each other (e.g.,: career advice, informational interviews, resume review, words of encouragement etc.).

Similarly, through my different industry roles, I support team members by practicing empathy and active listening to better understand the challenges they are facing in our projects. Since I have worked for contract research organizations (CROs), our projects often have tight timelines and clients can be demanding, therefore, I make sure that my team members know they have my support and that I am available to help. By doing this, I find that we are able to succeed on our projects together, helping advance the whole team’s professional growth, culminating in career successes.